Extreme Wines of Argentina
- adrianlatimer61
- 14 minutes ago
- 11 min read
‘Porque el vino, cuando es verdadero, no envejece: solo se transforma en memoria’
(Because wine, when it is true, does not age, it only becomes a memory)
Alejandro Vigil, winemaker El Enemigo & Catena, Mendoza, Argentina
Argentina is a land of extremes. Take the fabled Ruta 40, the road that forms the backbone of the country, from the cactus strewn Alto Plano high mountain Atacama desert on the Bolivian border, via the salt plains and along the whole length of the Andes down almost to Tierra del Fuego at the end of the world. That’s over 5,000kms. If you hopped into your car in London or Paris that would end you up somewhere in Bermuda, Ivory Coast, Cape Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Iran… and believe it or not there are vines along much of it.
As we are about to drag two wine-loving friends over for their first trip next month, I thought it would be fun to have a look at some of the more extraordinary wines that are appearing in Argentina this century. Wines that seem to want to be neighbours with the condors and penguins, born high, high up in the Andes or way, way down south towards the Antarctic.
Extreme wines.
It is Argentina that produces both the most southerly wine in the world (forget New Zealand’s Central Otago or South Africa) and, commercially, the highest. In Europe we tend to think of 500 metres as lofty and get very excited if we top the 1,000m mark in the Swiss or Italian Alps or the slopes of Mount Etna but imagine doubling and indeed tripling that. I have stood in Argentine vineyards at the same altitude as I’d be skiing on the higher slopes of the Alps or perched on the summits of the Pyrenees. When in Patagonia I have looked at The Throne in the Clouds, over seven thousand feet of rock and ice towering over a national park, with a glass of Torrontes in my hand that was grown in a field higher than the peak in front of me. Meanwhile about five minutes up the dirt track road, with glorious views to the Andes and the same mountain, is one of the most southerly vineyards on earth.
The wine area in Argentina that everyone knows about, that gets all the hype, marketing, Instagram posts and prices is of course Mendoza. The scenery is indeed epic, the dedication and research impressive, and some of the top (quality and altitude) vineyards in Gualtalarry and Altamira (like Catena’s Adrianna) produce world class wines, but that’s not what I am interested in here. You can read a ton about that elsewhere with one click of the finger. With, of course, prices and endless marketing that reflect the notoriety.
I want to go more off the beaten track, and head up (vertically and geographically) or south where you find wines that are cheaper, compelling and at the frontier of what is possible. Wines that are truly heroic, and, for the moment, undervalued and underpublicized. Wines of extreme terroir.
Take the 43rd latitude south. This would put you somewhere in the ocean below Africa and Australia, but only in the middle of Patagonia, in what is termed ‘Welsh Patagonia’ (Chubut province), named after the early settlers who were lured over in the nineteenth century with dubious promises of a land of plenty from the Argentine government, largely in an attempt to claim the frontier and keep it from Chile. Indeed, the oddly titled ‘Valley of the 16th October’ in Trevelin is named after the date of the plebiscite that decided whether the settlers would be Argentine or Chilean in 1902.
Little did they know that a century later this remote but gloriously pretty valley in the foothills of the Andes would become such a happening place for wine.
The best known (& most expensive) winery here is Casa Yague, and a more beautiful one would be hard to find. It used to be land used for farming and was only converted to vines in 2014, with further plantings since, the latest being Pinot. I expected it would be just the ‘usual’ cool climate suspects of Chardonnay and Pinot, but no, there is Cabernet Franc, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Marsanne. I am not sure quite why there is such a plethora of varieties, I presume to see which suits best, though some are more of a headache to grow, and each variety needs its own specific trellising system and care. The winds remove most of the disease problems, but of course add their own issues, and frost is the perennial risk. The water for spraying against frost and for drip irrigation comes from the glacier above via the Arroyo Blanco stream, though in 2023 the frost prevention failed, and a lot of the crop was frozen to death. The Chardonnay is quite autolytic (champagne-like without the bubbles) and very citrus with a distinctive salty tang. And at only 11.5-12% something you can drink in abundance and not risk a headache. Refreshing.
Just up the road is Vinas Nant y Fall, irrigated by a stream that comes down from a flamingo-filled lake on a high plateau surrounded by the Andes. It too is refreshing, slightly reductive and again that citrus, salty, autolytic taste. And great value locally.
The last of the trio that I know is an American financed winery, Contra Corriente. Founded also in 2014 they grow Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Pinot and Riesling, though there are only four hectares and 10,000 bottles, so it’s not easy to find. To give you a flavour of the place, here are some extracts from their website:
‘Soil is comprised of ancient riverbed left over from the retreat of Patagonia’s glaciers and is heterogeneous, well drained, and alluvial. Soil texture is sandy loam with the presence of volcanic ash, clay, and good organic matter…Everything about the vineyard is extreme due to its location in a production limit zone at 43* South Latitude. It is labor intensive. Unlike large mechanically farmed vineyards, each plant is handled at least a dozen times throughout the season, leading to low-yield high-quality fruit. Selective shoot thinning and fruit thinning go on through the season to ensure proper fruit set and ripeness. Strong winds up to 50 knots require that shoots are arranged and tied, and the long days and intense UV rays require that fruit is covered to avoid sunburn. Pests are a problem so the vineyard must be protected with electrical fencing to keep hares out and netting must also be installed after veraison to keep birds from decimating the crop… the vineyard has a maritime influence due to temperate Pacific Ocean winds which follow the Yelcho and Futaleufu Rivers upstream through Chile, eventually passing through a narrow gap in the Andes. Glacial soils, with the presence of clay and volcanic ash, are also unique and add to the complexity of the wines.’
Ok, it’s marketing, but if you want terroir… and the wine is, to my taste, the more impressive of the 3, still only around the 12% mark, somewhat reductive, tangy but with a little more body – a lighter, more zippy Burgundian style you might say.
Sadly, these wines are very difficult to source here (Europe), though I spotted Casa Yague on a Spanish website (at way less than the price in Patagonia). But with global warming melting the traditional wine regions, they show what can be done in places previously considered impossibly cold and hostile. And every year that I am down there, a new winery pops up on the riverbank. How they plan to compete with the mass production of Mendoza I do not know, but I admire their belief.
I have already posted here about the most southerly wine in the world, (Nov 6, 2022) but for those who haven’t read the post, the newest star is called Otronia, from Sarmiento, 450km to the southeast of that oddly named valley in Chubut. Now that is REALLY far south.
The first vines were only planted in 2010, and the inaugural chardonnay vintage was 2017, so this really is a start-up. Extreme? In the winter it drops to -15C, the limit for even dormant vines to survive, and in spring when they are budding it can be -7c, thus exposing the fragile young shoots to the same frozen death that we now seem to get every April/May in Chablis and Burgundy. Even in summer, it can be zero in the morning and then 30C in the afternoon. The growing season is a lot shorter than up north in Mendoza, winter’s bookends being closer, but you get an extra hour of light every day, so a long hang time. Even so, the average yearly temperature is down to 11c, about 3 degrees cooler than Mendoza, a fact that limits the potential alcohol levels and boosts the acidity, two positives for me in a world of global warming and too many critics’ palates that love rich, ripe fruit bombs with inflated scores.
When they planted this experimental, slightly crazy project, they expected to make sparkling wines as they doubted that they’d be able to achieve sufficient sugar and alcohol levels for still ones (rather like in England). Wrong - the long days, endless light and piercing winds (up to 100kms an hour or more) lead to low yields of grapes with very thick skins, so lots of extract and solids and, happily, enough concentration and alcohol. Less juice, more pulp.
The wind and cold are the two potential killers, so they have installed the usual water/ice protection (the irrigation water droplets freeze around the grape clusters at precisely zero degrees, a sort of chilly insulation – the plant cells can withstand zero so it can be -7C outside, but not inside. Eskimo grapes in a nice thick fleece of ice).
They have planted rows of trees between the vines, but they will take a decade to grow strong and high enough to offer much cover, so they have built nets to stop the prevailing gale from eroding the soil, ripping up the vines and tossing them into the South Atlantic. Believe me, when fishing in rivers down here, I have been blown off my feet and watched very well tethered tents sail into the fresh Andean air (a wedding marquee also!)
It used to be an orchard of cherry trees. The vineyards sit between two interconnected lakes on what was an old lakebed, so the soil is sandy, littered in places with alluvial stones and, especially, clay from the ancient lake bottom. It is this clay that forms the basis for blocks III and VI for the chardonnay and block I for the Pinot, their signature wines and soil. They also produce a cornucopia of other varieties and blends covering Gewurztraminer, bubbles, Merlot, Malbec and even some sweet wine that must be Patagonia’s only answer to ice-wine. Add with that light, the short season, long days, huge temperature swings and grapes with super thick skins, you have an interesting terroir to examine.
The consultant winemaker is the renowned Italian Alberto Antonini, a master of Argentine Malbec. There is no malolactic fermentation for the Chardonnay, and the oak is untoasted, and I think some concrete eggs used too. Apart from the wind defences, the vineyard is covered in snow the winter and local herbs such as thyme and mint the summer. Oh, and just to get you back to that extreme wild west setting, there are lots of rabbits frolicking around which I presume are lunch and dinner for the resident pumas. If that seems a bit far-fetched, I have seen the remains, or skulls, of pumas in Chubut and know they roam in the Andean foothills behind Casa Yague and other vineyards.
The wines? The Pinot gets to an impressive 13%, is pale pinkish-red, elegant and floral, a sort of lighter version of Chambolle-Musigny or Volnay. A little more rustic, but really nice. The Chardonnay is I think a notch above in class, the 2019 better balanced and less zippingly acidic than the 2018, with greengage and yellow fruit, a remarkable amount of chewy tooth coating body and a nice citrussy finish. Ridiculously good for a wine at the extreme end of the world. (Just buy it in Europe not in Argentina where it’s twice the price, an odd but not uncommon phenomenon).
At the other end of the country (but in the same mountain range) we find the other extreme – wines of extreme altitude. Anyone in the know will presume that I am now going to write about Salta, but no, let’s hop one province even further north (almost to Bolivia) to Jujuy, famed for its literally technicoloured mountains. It’s a haven for tourists, but, as yet, the wines remain unknown and hard to find, even in Jujuy, and I suspect that they don’t exist in Europe at all. In which case if you want to taste true mountain wine for 25 euros a bottle which is grown in the most crazily spectacular surroundings, you’ll need to get over there yourself. I can recommend the Almancer Andino Malbec, red fruited and with a herbal dimension that I think marks these stratospheric wines – you don’t find the densely opaque Mendoza fruit bombs up here. Even better is Yacoraite’s Malku malbec, again that herbal red fruitedness, but with a bit of licorice and leather added, more savoury and less fruit-dominated than the typical Argentina Malbec. Very much wines of a place.
But if these wines are unfindable and thus less of interest, let’s paddle down the Calchaqui river valley into Salta, where vineyards stretch in all directions in Cafayate, with luxury hotels and imposing wineries. En route we can turn off at Molinos, in the middle of nowhere with yet more scenery to grab your breath and exhaust your camera battery. I have also written before (Salta Jan 6, 2023 and High Altitude Feb 6th, 2024) about the world’s highest commercial vineyard (I think there is in fact a tiny but higher one in Jujuy and Tibet!), so let’s just end with the ultimate extreme wine, Colome’s Altura Maxima, vines grown up at 3,111 metres, yup that’s 10,000 feet up in the sky.
The Sauvignon Blanc I found very varietal but with a green herbaceous finish that rather overwhelmed it. The Pinot (you are 10,700km from Beaune and an oxygen depriving 2,800m higher) was 12,5%, with a similar same profile to the Otronia but perhaps lacking a bit of body, though nice enough. No, the star here (again) is the Malbec, the most expensive wine in the north (but hardly surprising given the remotely impossible location and a snip compared to the new cult wines of Mendoza).
These are wines with elevated alcohol levels that can breach 15%, something we generally don’t stomach at all, but this is due to the intensity of light and the long days, not a wish to pick late and get high scores, and they seem to be managing it down below 15% now. Anyway, we have drunk three hefty vintages and not minded (or even noticed) the alcohol, which I must admit surprises me. In fact, I’d say the wines come across as definitely elegant, again not a word I usually think of in relation to Malbec. They give aromatic red fruit, licorice, menthol, herbs and, somehow, a feeling of real class. They are quite simply one of our (if not the) favourite wines from Argentina and if you don’t believe me, Tim Atkin MW, who has visited and tasted throughout the country since 1992, just rated the Colome 2022 Altura Maxima Malbec his red wine of the year in his 2025 Argentina Special Report, giving it a mere 99 points, ‘ripe yet well balanced it has haunting mountain herb aromas of thyme, violet and jarilla, beautifully integrated older oak, racy bramble, blackberry and red cherry flavours, filigree tannins, energetic freshness and a stony finish’. 14.5%.
I’d better load some padded wine carrying bags in my suitcase…
Postscript - ‘The Wine in My Glass’
After some encouragement and a fair few blog posts, I published (Sept 2025) a book about my travels in the wine world - the people, places and, of course, wines. I am not a professional, so everything I say is objective and unbiased (so I can criticise when other journalists do not dare to do so for instance) and any profits will go to the Vendanges Solidaires association which was set up in 2016 to help winemakers who are in trouble after suffering the extreme weather conditions (frost, hail, fire, flood etc) which sadly are becoming ever more frequent: www.vendangessolidaires.com.
The book ranges from California to Sicily, via Salta, Jujuy and Patagonia in Argentina, Valtellina, Piemonte and Tuscany in Italy, Madeira and of course all over France (Burgundy, Chablis, Sancerre, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, the Rhone).
If you have found any pleasure and/or interest in this blog, I think you might enjoy it, especially as it has been brilliantly illustrated by Arabella Langlands-Perry who managed to juggle bringing up two young kids, helping run Maceo/Willi’s Wine Bar in Paris and producing artwork with an abundance of both talent and wit. Brava.
‘The Wine in My Glass – Tales of Wines, Winemakers and Places’
Published by The Medlar Press Limited, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, autumn 2025. www.medlarpress.com
Available from Medlar in UK, and/or from me in France or Willis Wine Bar in Paris.
Price UK Pounds 26 from Medlar or 35 Euros. All profits to charity.
Comments